ACLU: American Civil Liberties Union of Ohio
Keeping America Safe and Free

Racial Justice

Updated 09.21.09 The ACLU envisions a free, safe and just society, where civil liberties are secure for all.  Throughout our history, we have worked on behalf of people of color to ensure that constitutional protections are extended to all citizens and that opportunities for education, employment, legal representation and political participation are not denied on the basis of race.

What's Happening in Ohio

Racial disparity of drug arrests
The ACLU of Ohio is a founding member Citizens for a Safe & Fair Cleveland, a coalition created to work towards unbiased law enforcement and judicial equity as related to drug laws.

In 2008, the coalition commissioned a study by Professor Mona Lynch of San Jose State University to examine the selective enforcement of drug laws in Cuyahoga County. Selective Enforcement of Drug Laws in Cuyahoga County, Ohio: A Report on the Racial Effects of Geographic Disparities in Arrest Patterns finds that African Americans and other minorities in the city of Cleveland are more often charged with felony drug possession than their suburban peers.

Using the report as a resource, the coalition successfully lobbied Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson to change the city's procedure for handling drug paraphernalia cases to reflect those followed by greater Cuyahoga County. Read the editorial from the Cleveland Plain Dealer regarding the importance of realistic drug policy for Cleveland. 

The Sentencing Project’s May 2008 report, Disparity by Geography: The War on Drugs in America’s Cities includes a profile of Columbus, Ohio. The study found that drug arrests of black individuals in Ohio has increased by 293% since 1980, compared to a 41% decrease in white drug arrests.

Racial disparity in Ohio’s jail and prison populations
The 2000 census reported that 85% (9,645,453) of Ohio residents are white, while 11.5% (1,301,307) are African American. Yet in Ohio’s prisons, the inmate population is 51.83% white and 45.75% black. The ACLU of Ohio is working to bring an end to racial disparity in Ohio’s jails and prisons.
 
The Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction reports statistical information annually:
Commitment Reports
Annual Reports
Annual Jail Reports
 
The Job Prescription: Examining Pervasive Joblessness Among African-American Men, published by Policy Bridge, includes a discussion of Ohio’s statistics.
 
Report card for Ohio's juvenile justice system
The ACLU, the ACLU of Ohio, the Children's Law Center and the Office of the Ohio Public Defender released a report card in February 2009, grading the state in five subjects: waiver of counsel, shackling of juveniles, juveniles tried as adults, detention and commitment rates and disproportionate minority confinement.

Racial disparity in juvenile detention centers
Black youths in Ohio are more likely to be seen in juvenile court and more likely to be detained in a juvenile facility than any other group of young people. The W. Haywood Burns Institute for Juvenile Fairness and Equity publishes statistics documenting racial disparity in Ohio’s youth detention centers.

Similarly, the Urban Poverty and Social Change Center at Case Western Reserve University reports disproportionate minority confinement among juveniles.


Resources

What to Do if You Are Stopped by the Police
Click here for 4-up layout (two-sided, 4 cards per sheet)

The national ACLU's Racial Justice Program provides news and resources on racial profiling, affirmative action, criminal justice, and education.

Read The Persistence of Racial and Ethnic Profiling in the United States: A Follow-Up Report to the U.N. Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, a 2009 report by the ACLU and the Rights Working Group

Read ACLU's 2009 report Policing In Schools: Developing A Governance Document For School Resource Officers In K-12 Schools.

See video footage and materials from the Challenging the School to Prison Pipeline: Harms and Remedies conference co-hosted by the ACLU Racial Justice Program and the New York Law School

Read ACLU's 2007 report Race & Ethnicity in America: Turning a Blind Eye to Injustice.

Read the ACLU report A Bond Forged in Struggle: The ACLU's Historic Alliance with African-Americans in the Quest for Racial Justice.

Available from Human Rights Watch
Targeting Blacks: Drug Law Enforcement and Race in the United States
 and Incarcerated America
 
Available from Policy Matters Ohio
Selective Celling: Inmate Population in Ohio’s Private Prisons
and Fact sheet regarding state and federal money spent on prisons verses colleges
 
Published by the Justice Policy Institute
Cellblocks or Classrooms?: The Funding of Higher Education and Corrections and its Impact on African American Men

Read news articles related to racial justice.